


violence & victory

by ignitesthestars



Series: a strange kind of redemption [5]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Nico/Will mentioned, Resolved Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Relationships, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, amicable break ups, this is the arc of a relationship starting and ending, this verse is a clusterfuck of bad decisions and worse pairings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-10 13:25:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15950255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignitesthestars/pseuds/ignitesthestars
Summary: The surf is in full riot mode, thundering up the beach in waves taller than him, a statement that is pretty terrifying now that Nico is seventeen and several growth spurts past the shrimpy period of his life. The rain is brutal and immediate, the figure slumped on the sand barely visible through the downpour.All in all, it’s very dramatic.“I really don’t want to talk,” Percy says, not turning around as Nico approaches.“I am very wet,” Nico says back, because he is, and Percy should know that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the other name for this fic is the 'tire fire verse' because it is a mess and so are all the idiots trying to kiss each other in it. you don't have to read the rest for this one to make sense, but the gist of it is that Luke is alive and tied to never leave Camp Halfblood as his punishment, Percy and Annabeth never got together as a result of this complicating factor, and everyone wants to kiss everyone else.
> 
> LET'S GO

No one sulks quite as spectacularly as Percy Jackson.

Nico squints up at the roiling mass of clouds rapidly eating up what had started out as a perfectly fine blue sky. A cacophony of shrieks ripples across the grounds of Town Halfblood (ugh), and Nico supposes it says good things about the world that the kids living there thought that a little bit of rain was worth screaming about.

He sticks his arm out from the Hades cabin overhang, and is instantly drenched. _All right, a lot of rain_. But the sudden disappearance of the sun has cast a pall over the grounds, and Nico can trace a path of huddled shadows right to the beach.

The surf is in full riot mode, thundering up the beach in waves taller than him, a statement that is pretty terrifying now that Nico is seventeen and several growth spurts past the shrimpy period of his life. The rain is brutal and immediate, the figure slumped on the sand barely visible through the downpour.

All in all, it’s very dramatic.

“I really don’t want to talk,” Percy says, not turning around as Nico approaches.

“I am very wet,” Nico says back, because he is, and Percy should know that. The rain is getting everywhere, colder than it has a right to be, plastering hair and clothes to his skin. It’s not like drowning, but it’s not pleasant either.

He flops bonelessly into the sand next to him, not thinking too hard about the way their shoulders knock together. Definitely not noticing the way Percy doesn’t stiffen, or try to pull away.

“What?” 

He has the gall to look startled, all parted lips and wide eyes. They’ve gone the same green-grey as the water rushing in towards them, not that Nico is paying attention.

“You’re driving every meteorologist on the East Coast insane right now.” 

He swirls a finger around to indicate the uh, weather, because he suspects that Percy’s brooding has carried him somewhere beyond paying attention to the world around him. Arrogance isn’t his style. Oblivious suits much better, and so does the flush working up his throat as he takes in the manifestation of his bad mood.

“Shit.” The tide sweeps in towards them like a dog on a leash, desperate to jump up on Percy’s lap; he lets it, even as the water diverts around Nico, leaving him - well, no wetter than before. “Shit, hold on--”

Nico is powerful. Nico can raise an army of the dead if he needs to, can split the earth and command shadows and strike fear into the hearts of his enemies with barely a glance. After all this time in the world of gods and halfbloods, he’s grown to have a certain appreciation for what he can do. He likes it.

But none of what he does is beautiful.

Percy’s gaze goes distant, like he’s staring straight through Nico. He’s dry, of course, but the wind rakes through his hair and the sea howls in protest as he coaxes it down, reels the clouds back in, soothes the downpour into a drizzle before the sky finally clears and the sun blinks dazedly down at them like it’s not sure what just happened, but is willing to roll with it.

And then there’s Percy Jackson sprawled in the sand next to him, thrumming with the sort of power that terrifies gods, pressing his forehead into the knee drawn up to his chest and breathing very softly. His hair is a little longer than usual. Nico very carefully curls his fingers into his palm.

“Sorry,” Percy mutters. “I guess I got carried away.”

There are a lot of things Nico could say in response to that. _She’s just gone to school you big lump_ is at the top of the list. _She’ll be back and the two of you will get over yourselves and be disgustingly happy together._

 _Will broke up with me_ is in there somewhere as well, but Percy has never really been his confidant, and Nico knows the older man will definitely feel the responsibility to ask _are you okay_ and also _why?_ , neither of which Nico is prepared to answer.

 _I’m probably still in love with you_ doesn’t feature at all. Honest.

“Really,” he says flatly. 

Percy shifts his head to scowl at him, only to lose the expression to a snort of laughter when he catches sight of Nico.

“You look like a drowned rat.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Whoever made you walk onto a beach in the middle of a storm, probably.” But he reaches out, curls a hand around Nico’s bicep, wicks the water away until it’s like the last ten minutes never happened. “Better?”

“Great.” Nico ignores the way Percy’s hand lingers, the heat of him. “Love having my own personal towel.”

“I mean, I can throw you right into the sea if you’re that mad about it.”

“I didn’t say I was mad.” Percy still hasn’t stopped touching him. “Are you done sulking, or do you need some more time?”

That does it, Percy jerking his hand away like he’s the one burning. “I _wasn’t_ \--”

Nico leavers himself to his feet. “Yes or no, Jackson, I don’t have all day.”

“Y’know, I thought you’d grow out of it one day.” Percy lurches up after him, spraying sand everywhere. “But the jerk thing’s just a personality trait, huh?”

It’s a comment that probably would have devastated him a few years ago, but he’s a little older, a little wiser, and a lot more aware of the way this guy works. It’s not that Percy’s a saint, but Nico knows that if he’d meant to be cutting, he wouldn’t be so casual about it. Knows that the circumstances where Percy actually _means_ to hurt someone are few and far between, and usually well deserved.

He holds a hand out to him. ‘I need some help with some horses.” _And you need a distraction_.

Percy raises both eyebrows at him, but doesn’t hesitate in taking his hand. Nico chooses not to read anything into the way their fingers thread together. “What are you doing with horses?”

“You’ll see,” Nico says, and wraps them both in shadow.

*

“YOU DIDN’T MENTION A GHOST.”

Nico laughs, too-loud and delighted as a mare charges by with Percy clinging to her mane, barely seated. She whinnies irritably and twists to bite anything that looks like it might be in reach, but the terrible shrieking and white eyes that had greeted Nico the last time he tried to deal with this haunting are nowhere to be seen.

“Why did you think they called me the Ghost King?” he pants back, exchanging another flurry of blows with the indistinct shape that had roared out of a nook in the stables. 

“I DIDN’T THINK IT WAS BECAUSE LITERALLY EVERYTHING YOU DO INVOLVES GHOSTS.”

“Sounds like a - you problem.”

Nico bends backwards to avoid a too-long strike from what seems to be a riding crop, feeling a sickly wave of fear wash over him a beat after. If it's that bad for him, he feels real pity for the horses it's directed at, even though the animals have nearly kicked his head in more than once.

It's almost enough to make him just take control of the taraxipus, to destroy or dismiss it. But Nico is trying to be softer with spirits these days, to treat them less as tools and more as--

Well, minor annoyances. But the point is, he could rip the ghost into nothingness and be done with this and he doesn't. Ethically, he's happy with that.

The horses protest again, but as Nico rights himself and fends off another strike with the crop - that thing _hurts_ \- he can tell they're starting to calm down. Percy is talking nonsense, half-frustration and half-soothing and Nico can’t help but grin at the absurdity of the situation. Sure, he’s fighting a ghost, but this is the sort of thing that makes him feel alive like nothing else. Adrenaline pumps through his veins, sweat tracing fingers down his spine, the stretch and pull of his muscles satisfying rather than stressful.

“You’re not going to win,” Nico points out to the spirit, whose form is starting to fray at the edges from pure rage. Something that might be a head twists around wildly to scream at the horses that have broken free of their stalls, but Percy has them well in hand at this point. “You’re exhausted, and we’re not trying. Come peacefully, and it’s going to be a lot easier for you.”

A voice like the sound of a hundred screaming horses pulls itself together long enough to tell him, “Victory is never easy,” and Nico is resigned to just dragging the thing to the Underworld after all when Percy speaks up.

“What if we raced?”

“What,” Nico says.

“Whargarble,” the spirit says. Nico translates that as ‘also what’.

Percy, wind ruffled and pleased with himself, reclines on the horse like some kind of indolent prince, and Nico is too recently out of a breakup to be looking at him like this. “A daughter of Notus got thrown during a race she should have won like, six months ago. I don’t know what ingredients go into making ‘angry horse ghost’, but that sounds pretty close, right?”

“R...ight.”

Nico knew that. The confusing part is why _Percy_ knows that, and what else he might know about dead demigods, and he has a vague suspicion that he’s standing on the yawning edge of something tragic that he’s desperately unqualified to address, especially when they’re trying to subdue an angry taraxippus. 

He drags his focus back to the ghost. “Would that work? You race him, you lose, you come quietly and I make sure you get a fair hearing. You win, this place is yours.”

He can buy it if he needs to. Children of Hades were never hurting for cash. Relocate the horses - taraxappoi were powerful, but they were tied to a location. At least, that’s what he tells Percy later when they’re back on the beach, idly watching the sun sink below the horizon. 

There’s a nasty scrape across Percy’s cheek from the spirit’s riding crop, but he’s smiling in true Jackson style - soft, distracted. Nico likes the wildness of him, the laughter that had burbled out on the track as he whipped past the ghost on its terrified steed - but he likes this more. It’s not hard to see him as powerful, after all.

Catching him vulnerable is another thing entirely.

“You were going to buy the whole stable if I lost?”

“Children of Hades don’t exactly hurt for cash.”

“Still.” Percy leans back on his hands, tipping his head back. Nico examines the line of this throat and decides that he’s lucky the older guy is so oblivious. “That’s a heck of a bet to put on me.”

“Not really.”

He’s taken his boots off wriggled his toes into the sand. The water is just as eager to rush them as it was in the morning, but it’s playful now - splashing around their ankles, eager to reach out but careful of where Nico’s rolled his jeans up to. It takes him a second to register the sharp look Percy is levelling at him, because Nico is an idiot and have let his guard down.

Story of his freaking life.

“Well,” Percy says slowly, “thanks. I know I haven’t exactly been deserving of that kind of--”

“Hey, Jackson?”

Percy falls silent, raising his eyebrows instead. Night crawls up the beach, and Nico resist the urge to let the shadows swallow him. 

“No one likes a martyr.”

It’s a bit of a crapshoot these days, what’s going to trigger the son of Poseidon’s copious anger. But Percy just snorts, flopping back into the sand. “You never let me get away with anything, do you?”

Once upon a time it might have been bitter. Once upon a time, Nico would have read it that way regardless of intention. Now, though? It’s contemplative now, and that’s more deeply terrifying than any other option.

 _Run_ , his inner twelve year old screams. _Get up and go!_

Nico pulls his hands out from under him, lies back until the sand crunches under him and the warmth of Percy’s body radiates down his right side.

“Friend’s don’t,” he says simply.

He doesn’t look at Percy, but he knows he’s smiling.

*

_The break up doesn’t really come as a surprise. It’s hard to be taken off guard by something you’ve spent the whole relationship half-expecting._

_“Okay.” Nico nods like he gets it, like his brain is processing anything other than the word ‘ouch’ right now. “Sure. Hey, don’t worry about it.”_

_Will sighs, a habit that that Nico had found endearing up until about two seconds ago. He reaches for Nico’s shoulder, and Nico lets his hand land because his body has not yet transitioned to a life where Will’s touch is a bad thing._

_“I love you,” Will says simply, easily, earnestly. It doesn’t really_ go _with ‘I think we should see other people_ ’. _“And I know you care about me. But we’ve been together since you were fourteen.”_

_“And you’re - what, tired of me?”_

_“Don’t be stupid.”_

_“Well fuck, Will, what do you expect?” He shrugs the hand off, backing away._ Run _, his brain screams._ R u n. _“Sorry I’m not taking being dumped with grace and intelligence.”_

_“Shit.” Will looks stricken, which - fairly or not - drains all that rage out of Nico just as quickly as it had risen up. He doesn’t want to fight Will. He doesn’t know what he wants. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m going about this all wrong. I just didn’t want you to think that I minded.”_

Minded that you’re leaving me?? _But despite his hurt, Nico still knows the other boy. Knows his kind heart and his good intentions, knows that when he says_ I love you _he means it with everything in him. It doesn’t match up with everything else happening right now, but it’s enough for Nico to ignore the screaming in his brain, to cross his arms over his chest and wait._

_“We’re still really young. And you’re - Nico, you’re still really in love with Percy Jackson.”_

_Nico can’t be sure, but he thinks the world ends right about then. Somehow Will keeps talking, but Nico has definitely left this plane of existence and travelled straight to Tartarus._

_Well, at least he can’t argue that this isn’t fair anymore._

“ _...fine! Like I don’t think that anyone should be limited to only having one big love in their life, and I don’t think that feelings just turn off because you’re with another person. But I think you deserve some time to figure things out, you know? Without any pressure from me, or any guilt from you.”_

_Nico licks his lips, looks intently at one of the many skulls decorating Hades cabin. Chiron had offered him land for an actual house and Nico had accepted but...what does he know about making a home?_

_Easier to stay here._

_“So you just made that decision for me, huh.”_

_“No.” Will’s smile is gentle, but strained at the edges. It occurs to Nico that the other boy is trying very, very hard to hold back his own pain here. “I made it for me.”’_


	2. Chapter 2

Quests are supposed to be three people, so Nico and Percy call their particular brand of monster hunting ‘excursions’, and take their own private pleasure at telling the gods to fuck off. What starts out as an attempt to distract themselves, to bury in violence and victory something that might otherwise be called ‘feelings’, turns into something a little messier.

It’s not healthy. It’s not even really coping, but there’s satisfaction in it anyway. In knowing that they’ve put down another threat, in the clean and uncomplicated adrenaline of it all. It’s harder and harder to pull that soft smile out of Percy again, but Nico still gets wild laughter, the broad grin of a battle won.

It’s not enough, but it’s something, and Nico likes that something. For the first time pretty much ever, he and Percy both feel like equals. A lot of other parts suck, but that bit’s pretty good.

Will is...around. Working with his mom on a new house near the centre of town, which is never going to have a less awkward name than Town Halfblood (or the much argued over Halfblood Town). Their little Greek paradise isn’t exactly a metropolis, but it’s almost at the point of ‘small, self-sustaining village’, and Nico can’t help but be proud. Even if his contributions are a little less direct, he feels more a part of this place than he has of any other in recent memory.

If his heart aches to see Naomi Solace’s two bedroom cottage go up without him - well. He goes and finds Percy, and they take it out on a giant crab.

“That’s the third time I’ve killed that thing,” Percy mumbles after Nico transports them back to camp, dumping them unceremoniously out onto the section of beach he’s starting to think of as theirs (it’s fine. He’s fine).

It’s midday and Apollo is out to get him personally because the sun is glaring down at them, the heat baking into his bones. Battle-sweat collects at the base of his neck, trickles down his spine; Percy’s wearing a shirt with a picture of a hammer on it and the words ‘This Is Not a Drill’ and it’s soaked thr - except he’s not wearing it anymore. Of course he’s not.

Nico squints up at the sky, exasperated. He can’t be sure, but he thinks the sun is probably laughing.

“You’re going to get sand everywhere,” he points out. 

Percy is face down on the beach, Riptide still uncapped and sword-shaped in his grasp. It’s not the first time he’s blithely taken his shirt off this summer so his skin is a warm, even brown. Nico’s gaze catches on the wing of his shoulder blade, drags helplessly down the V shape of his torso to settle at the two thumb-sized dimples at the small of his back.

“Oh no,” Percy drawls. “What will I, a demigod of the sea, do about these very small beach rocks?”

Nico kicks sand over his back. Percy yelps, and he has two full seconds of smugness before a strong grip latches onto his ankle. Nico is no weakling, but he’s off balance and Percy is stronger; he hits the ground with a _whumpf_.

“Now who’s got sand everywhere?” 

Nico elbows him. “You know I can _raise zombies_ right?”

“Sure, but you won’t.” Percy flops onto his back, tucking his arms under his head and closing his eyes, cheerfully ignoring the way Nico raises his eyebrows. “What, you think I didn’t notice your big respecting the dead kick?”

Nico stares at him. Not at his pectorals and the way the muscle stretches up to his arm, but his face. “No?” he says finally. “No.”

“Oh.” Percy blinks. “Well. I did. I think it’s neat. I know the whole - son of Hades thing has been hard for you over the years, but you’ve really grown into yourself. I’d say I was proud of you, if I thought I had anything to do with it.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

The older guy doesn’t stir, but Nico becomes abruptly aware of the crashing surf, the push and pull of the ocean that much more insistent. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is holding its breath to see what Percy Jackson does next, but Nico has been doing that since he was ten years old and isn’t intimidated.

“Even when I hated you, I l - I looked up to you. Saying you have nothing to do with who I am now is like saying Bianca didn’t, or Hazel, or Jason, or Will, or - you get the point.”

Percy opens his mouth, but words seem to have failed it for the moment. He shuts it with a click of teeth, a furrow between his brow. The surf draws back.

“We all influenced each other,” Nico finishes mulishly. “I don’t know what’s going on in your head right now about who you are or what you’re doing or what you deserve, but if you think I’m gonna let you lie there and just casually trash yourself when you’ve done more for _everyone_ than anyone should have asked for, then - then--”

He doesn’t have a then. He only has this sudden fury in his gut, at the world for turning Percy into this, and at Percy for believing it. But then - and Nico has to pinch himself subtly to make sure he’s not hallucinating - then Percy starts to laugh.

“You’re not even a little bit afraid of me, are you?”

The hurricane comes to mind. Percy’s wild laughter when they’re in the middle of killing things, the wary look in people’s eyes when they see him. None of it bothers Nico, who is after all more than used to people shying away from his power.

“I’m fucking terrified of you,” Nico replies easily. “Just not for any of the reasons you seem to think I should be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

But that’s enough honesty for today. Nico lifts the corner of his mouth in a half-smirk and reached for the nearest shadow, giving a little wave as he lets it drag him away.

*

Nico doesn’t tend to spar in public.

He’s not a good teacher. He gets frustrated too easily, can’t get his mouth and his brain to line up enough to explain what he’s doing or why. It’s not that older demigods _have_ to train the new kids, but the implication of surviving long enough to get good at something in this place is that you’ll pass it on to the next cohort coming through.

So that’s one reason. The other one is this:

Luke Castellan and Percy trade blows that make the air scream. Usually when one of them is training they attract a crowd of admirers, but with both of them in the yard together everyone seems to be doing whatever they can to avoid watching. Even kids that weren’t there for the Second Titan War seem to realise that it’s safer and smarter to be doing literally anything else.

Nico can’t stop looking.

There’s a simply brutality to their movements that makes it clear they’re _not_ teaching, that this is something else entirely. Percy has Riptide and Luke uses a nondescript short-sword, and they both wield their weapons like an extension of their bodies. They clash together and stay in tighter quarters than their reach should permit, the match about as much grappling as swordplay.

A foot enters the fray and Percy reels back with that wild laugh, dropping into a roll and coming up low, meeting Luke’s heavy downward swing just before it cleaves into his head. There’s no concern on the part of either of them that they might do real damage, not because there’s no danger of it - they’re both streaked in sweat and blood, clothing torn in half a dozen locations - but because they just don’t seem to care.

There’s a horrible edge to the laughter, the shift in context from doing something good, and useful, and _with Nico_ to this. This isn’t a sharp cut, the excising of poison. It’s an ugly violence, and both men seem to be enjoying the fight because of that, not in spite of it.

Nico wants to believe he’s stopped seeing Percy as his knight in shining armour, as someone to look up to rather than stand beside. And yet his own words linger in his head, _saying you had nothing to do with who I am_ , curling with sour disappointment at the version of Percy he sees now - he has to wonder if maybe he hasn’t grown as much as he wants to believe. If maybe he’s not still ten years old and desperate, somewhere deep down.

Luke has Percy’s sword arm wrenched up behind his back, painfully judging by the way he arches, panting. Percy spits something out around a grin or a snarl and whatever it is makes Luke lean in, mouth close to his ear. It’s impossible to tell what he says from a distance, but Nico doesn’t think he imagines the way bright blue eyes flick to his position at the edge of the yard before all of Luke’s attention returns to Percy.

Whatever the asshole decides to taunt him with, it apparently works, although not necessarily in Luke’s favour. Percy jerks his head back, hard enough for the crack of skulls to echo across the training area, hard enough that Luke’s face comes back streaked in crimson. But he doesn’t let go of his hold on Percy, and after a couple more second of thrashing that feels more like an eternity, Nico hears Percy’s voice ring out.

“All right, I yield. Let go, I yield.”

Nico expects the older man to lord his victory over Percy, but Luke lets go like he’s been burned. He steps back and again that electric gaze crackles over Nico.

“You’re slacking,” is all he says in the end, dragging his eyes back to Percy, who is already walking away.

“Shut up, Luke.”

“I’m just pointing out the obvious. You should have gotten out of that hold.”

He’s talking about the fight but the low rasp of his voice says he’s talking about something else and Nico is abruptly, uncomfortably aware of a whole new world he hadn’t realised existed until this moment. As close as he and Percy have gotten lately, he has no idea what the fuck is going on between these two, but there’s a thrumming energy in the training grounds that has nothing to do with the quickly dissipating violence.

Sworn enemies, saviour and sinner. Percy gives Luke the finger without turning around. He scoops up a water bottle, gulps half in one go, and that’s when Nico twigs that he’s not just walking away from Luke, he’s walking _towards_ Nico. Who hadn’t exactly been trying to hide his presence, but who also hadn’t anticipated being approached. Not now, not after _that_ performance.

Something shudders in his chest. _Anger_ , he thinks. _I’m angry_.

“What,” he says, when Percy is close enough that it can only be heard between the two of them, “was that about?”

Percy grimaces, touching his fingers gingerly to a slash over his cheek. He squirts the water bottle into his face in a display that seems, frankly, needless until Nico notices the skin sluggishly pulling itself together and scabbing over - not enough to heal completely, but apparently good enough for now.

“Someone has to walk the dog,” he shrugs and Nico is no fan of Luke Castellan but casual cruelty of the words is enough to leave him breathless.

“Right. I’ll leave you to it then.”

He reaches blindly for the nearest shadow, but there’s a hand around his wrist before he can fade away. He turns back because he can’t help himself, and there’s the Percy Jackson he knows and loves, eyes all sea-green and worry.

“Everything okay?”

His mouth works. How is he supposed to answer that? Nico searches Percy’s face but there’s no indication of that sudden mean streak, or that Percy had even noticed how uncomfortable his words were. He just looks concerned, about Nico, and his hand is around Nico’s wrist, and Nico wants to kiss him so badly that his ribs compress.

“You’re bleeding,” he says, because there’s a rent in his singlet and another cut sullenly oozing blood down his arm. Nico wants to hate Luke for it, but he’s pretty sure Luke’s nose is broken. In terms of damage, it’s not Percy who’s worse off.

At least not physically.

“Wh - you’re worried about this?” Percy checks his bicep. “Come on, man. You’ve seen me take worse.”

“It’s different,” Nico snaps, because he’s not going to pretend to be okay with whatever that display was. “You know it’s different.”

There’s a forest between them and the beach but he thinks he hears waves crashing anyway. Percy lets go, runs a frustrated hand through his hair.

“Is this the part where you tell me that Luke’s dangerous and I need to stay away from him?”

“No, this is the part where I tell you that being around him turns you into sort of an asshole.”

He regrets the words the instant they’ve left him, but can’t pinpoint exactly why. It’s not like he doesn’t believe them, and he hasn’t made a habit of lying to Percy, at least not in the last couple of years. 

“Sorry,” he mutters, when Percy doesn’t say anything. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shoulders hunching as he turns away. Those shadows are feeling even more tempting. “Look, I really do have to go. But you should go see W - go see one of the Apollo kids about those. Just because you’ve taken worse doesn’t mean you have to put up with them now.”

It feels like it should be enough to get him out of the conversation, but Percy’s hand is a shackle around his wrist again.

“It would be nice,” he remarks, “if you would stop running away from me after saying things that seem kind of important.”

 _I’m fucking terrified of you_. Nico flushes irritably, knowing they’re both hearing it, knowing that Percy hasn’t figured out what he meant by it yet but that he’s not oblivious or an idiot, that it’s only a matter of time and _Nico_ is the stupid one here. He tugs on his arm but Percy’s grip is like Celestial Bronze because the gods hate him, Nico, personally.

“Hold on, hold on a second.” Percy clenches his grip, forces it to relax instantly. Nico doesn’t try to pull away again because he’s helpless in the face of a genuine request from him. “I just - look, being around Luke doesn’t make me anything different than what I always am, okay? I’m not nice Percy on the beach with you and asshole Percy on the training field with him, I’m not hero Percy killing monsters on a quest and rebel Percy killing them on a Saturday, and I wasn’t real Percy three years ago and fake Percy now. You know that, right? You have to know that.”

 _Oh_ , Nico realises, _oh_. Percy is breathing hard but it’s not with exertion, too fast for that and edged with panic. It means something to him that Nico picks up what he’s putting down, that he knows what he’s trying to say and the thing is, Nico does. Instantly, easily, without struggling to parse the language, because of course he knows the struggle of trying to marry up disparate pieces of yourself.

Of course he knows what it is, to be so different inside from what the world seems to demand outside. 

He moves without thinking about it too hard, because if he thinks about it too hard he won’t do it. People are starting to filter back into the training grounds now that Luke is gone, and a quiet possessiveness shudders through his frame. Nico curls an arm around Percy’s shoulders, tugging at the back of his neck until their foreheads are pressed together.

“Hey,” he says, pulling at the welcoming shadows, wrapping them both up in darkness. “I get it. It’s okay. I know.”

They disappear from the training field. For now, at least, this is a moment that belongs only to them.


End file.
